in the eye of a hurricane there is quiet
by thepensword
Summary: The Fire Lord grows tired of the Avatar slipping through his fingers, so he searches for the best assassin in the land. In the end, he finds Cassandra Cain.


This is remarkably self-indulgent.

Title from the song "Hurricane" by Lin-Manuel Miranda

Fun fact: when I was writing this, I envisioned Cass in her Orphan outfit from the New 52's "Batman and Robin Eternal".

Warnings: violence (non-graphic), angst, emotional abuse (because David Cain), dehumanizing, weaponization of a person

* * *

There is a room that is lit with flame and darkened by bold, dangerous shadows.

There is a wall of fire and behind it there is a throne and in that throne there is a man who is not a man, but a monster.

(A Dragon, but a corrupt one, with a heart that has been darkened by many, many years of ash and soot.)

The Dragon sits and he thinks and he plots, and as he does the flames surge around him.

"Ru!" calls the Dragon, and his rat scurries towards him in fearful, arrogant servility.

"Send word. I want the best assassin in the world to be found, and I want them brought before my feet."

And the rat does as he is told.

* * *

If the Dragon is a catapult, fiery and powerful, then David Cain is a dagger, and sharp and precise and deadly and poisonous.

He is the Viper.

The Viper comes before the Dragon and he is coolly reverent, respectfully cunning. He knows the place that the Dragon has given him, and he knows the place that he actually commands.

He is not the first to come before the Dragon since the search for the best assassin began, but he is the only one with any significance.

The Dragon watches him from behind his wall of fire, and his lip curls with contempt.

"Fire Lord," says the Viper. "I am honored."

(His words say one thing and his body says another, and the shadow behind the curtains sees it all.)

"I'm sure," says the Dragon. "I asked for the best assassin in the world. You think you can fulfill that requirement?"

The Viper smiles. "I know that I can."

One dark eyebrow rises on the Dragon's forehead and in it are a million thoughts. "Tell me, what is your specialty? Of what ancient forgotten martial arts form are you the last remaining master?"

(There have been many candidates for this task. So far, the Dragon has not been impressed.)

"I am a master in all forms of combat," replies the Viper with a proud, dangerous glint in his eye. "But I think you misunderstand. It is not myself who will fulfill your request."

"Oh?" queries the Dragon, intrigued and yet annoyed at this lapse of control.

(He does not know that the Viper is the cat and he is the mouse and this is a dangerous, dangerous game that he can never win.)

The Viper turns towards the shadows of the room and speaks no words, but his body says everything for him. A shadow detaches from a pillar and a small, small girl steps into the light.

"My daughter," says the Viper. "Cassandra."

Cassandra looks at the Dragon and she does not like what she sees.

The Dragon is not pleased, either. His eyes narrow and he leans forward angrily. "What is this?" he demands, fire flaring around him. "I warn you, Cain, I am not the man to mock."

The Viper raises his hands in cool submission. "I do not jest. You asked for the best there is, and Cassandra is just that. She can fight anyone into submission. There is no one capable of besting her in a fight."

The Dragon frowns still, but something relaxes from anger into curiosity. "Alright, David. You have my attention. You say she is the best? Have her prove it."

The curtain at the end of the wall parts and a young man is brought in, bound in chains. He is pale and gaunt, his clothes tattered and his hair awry, his unshaven face lined with fear and covered in sweat.

He is powerful. He is a prisoner.

"This is Yao Li," says the Dragon. "He was one of my best men, but he defected and I'm afraid we just haven't known quite what to do with him, but perhaps he can still be useful." He waves his hand at the guards that entered with the prisoner. "Unbind him and bring in the rest."

They do as they are bid, and through the curtain is dragged an old woman and a little boy. They are both trembling. Behind them is man built like a mountain, stooped and yet proud, and his arms curve muscularly like rocks.

"This is Yao Li's family. His grandmother. His father. His son. Once, they lived in peaceful bliss underneath the benevolent leadership of my court. But when Yao Li defected, they tried to hide him. They are all traitors."

The Dragon is smiling, and soon the Viper is too. The guards are impassive, the prisoners are terrified.

And Cassandra is a cliff face. She is made of stone and shows no emotion.

"So you claim this daughter of yours can fight anyone into submission. Fine. I believe you. But can she follow through?"

The Dragon gestures, and the guards give their spears to the woman and the mountain. They draw swords and hand them to the young man and the boy. Then they step back, and the prisoners huddle together.

"Kill them," says the Dragon.

Cassandra freezes for the barest moment, but then she looks the Viper in the eye and knows that her will is of no consequence in this matter. Her father (her wielder) bids her to kill, and so she must.

Cassandra has killed before, but she hates (hates hates hates hates ) it.

She has no choice, she tells herself, and then she moves.

The fight is over before it ever began.

The floor is crimson with blood that glints in the firelight.

The Dragon is smiling a cruel, cruel smile.

Cassandra drops her stance and lowers her head, and her hands are wet with blood.

Her face is wet, too.

(It's not from sweat or blood, though. Her face is wet from tears.)

* * *

The Viper hands her a knife, a piece of paper, and a sack of currency. He lowers down to one knee and looks her in the eye and speaks to her in no language but that of the body.

Cassandra breathes and straps the knife to her leg and tucks the coins into her belt. She glances at the paper (a drawing of her prey and some meaningless scribbles that must be words) and then back up towards him, nods a reply to everything he silently says.

Orders received. Bow drawn and aimed and ready for release.

* * *

Cassandra doesn't understand the stories people tell, but if she did then she'd know that it's been three years of vigorous search for the boy without success. She'd know that Admiral Zhao, favorite of the Fire Lord, had hunted tirelessly, that the Fire Lord's own son had desperately searched with single minded focus, and neither had been able to pin him down.

Cassandra finds him within a week.

It's a simple matter of waiting and watching, on the sides of roads and in the corners of taverns and in the shadows of marketplaces. She doesn't speak words but she's not stupid and she knows that her target is called "Avatar", and also that he is very, very important to many, many people. Wherever he passes, stories spread behind, leaving a clear path in his wake. Cassandra begins to learn other sounds associated with him, words like "arrow" and "kids" and "bison" and she follows these words like a trail of footsteps. Zhao and Zuko have in common the inability to wait and listen, neither knowing how to slip through the shadows unknown. They announce their presence loudly and thus learn nothing.

Cassandra stands now on the edge of a cliff, leather toes of her shoes curling over the edge, and inhales deeply. The wind flutters up from the canyon below and blows her hair away from her face, bringing with it the scent of dirt and mist and something cooking. Rice, she thinks.

(She also thinks that if her prey were really trying to hide, they wouldn't cook where the wind can blow. They would also have covered their very obvious footsteps in the dirt, side by side and dragging around the scraping tail of a great beast. If they had been more careful, it could have taken her weeks of wandering the cliffside to find them, but as it is she can pinpoint them almost immediately.)

Cassandra pulls her hood up over her head and leaps.

* * *

A week into her search and here she is, perched in the shadows of an ancient, ruined temple, watching a group of children eat rice and bicker.

She's a little disappointed, actually. She thought they'd be more impressive. They're clearly powerful, she can see it in the lines of their bodies, but they're horribly inexperienced. Underprepared, untrained, unsuspicious, lazy.

They don't even post a guard while they sleep.

All things considered, they kind of deserve it when Cassandra slips in as quiet as a shadow, her footsteps light as a breath of air, and steals the Avatar out from under their noses. They could use the lesson. Maybe in the future they won't be so quick to put their guard down.

Not that it matters. Once the Avatar is safely within the Dragon's grasp, they won't need to worry about being hunted anymore.

Cassandra glances down at the Avatar, her prey, sleeping and unaware. She has a cloth pressed to his mouth, wet with the juice of a plant that keeps him in slumber. She thinks about how easy it would be to slit his throat now, clean and without fuss, and he'd never know. She could drop his body off the cliff face and his friends would never be the wiser. He would have simply disappeared.

But this is not an assassination. This is a find and retrieve mission. He is to be brought to the Dragon.

Cassandra shifts his weight on her back and keeps walking.

* * *

She is five hours out and in the middle of nowhere when he begins to stir. She pauses and considers, then props him up with his back against a tree and ties his hands around the trunk.

Then she springs up to perch on a low-hanging branch and waits.

It would be wisest to simply knock him out again, keep him unconscious the whole way and deliver him quietly bound to the Dragon to do with as he pleases, but she is curious. Curiosity is one of the few flaws that her father has not yet managed to erase, though she's certain that someday he will. For now, though, Cassandra is helpless against the burning desire inside her breast to see what her prey is like, to look him in the eyes before she destroys his freedom.

Cassandra shivers and is silent.

The Avatar comes to slowly and then all at once, at first muttering something under his breath as his eyes twitch beneath his lids. Then he seems to register that he's not lying down, and his eyes fly open. Instantly his posture goes from relax sleep dream calm to panic fear flight trapped trapped **trapped no** —

He pulls against his bindings frantically, and then his eyes meet hers.

He freezes.

—who who who what where am i who's that what do you **want** let me **go run run run free—**

"Who are you?" gasps the Avatar desperately, his face trying to be brave and miserably failing. "What do you want?"

—me she wants me everyone wants me it's always something why can't i just **live i want to be free i want to be free leave me alone** —

Cassandra says nothing, but she drops down from her branch, landing silently on the ground before him. He is terribly young, she thinks. And innocent. His eyes are still filled with childish hope and positivity, despite being hunted tirelessly for the past three years. He is a child in every possible way, in every way that she is not and never truly has been.

When she takes him to the Dragon, that hope will be snuffed out like a candle flame deprived of air. He will whither away, become nothing but a husk of a person, a shell of a boy, and he will grow old as a hollow casing and one day die with barely a murmur.

When she takes him to the Dragon…

If she takes him to the Dragon.

Cassandra is on her own for the first time ever and she has a revelation. One hand curls into a fist by her side as she thinks that maybe, just maybe, she can make a decision about something for once in her life.

She remembers the flames in the Dragon's eyes and the venom in his words and she realizes.

The Avatar's eyes are full of smoke and flame and water and mist and dirt and sturdy rock and above all else, the wind, blowing and gusting and breezing gently and flying and...and...

If she brings this boy to the Dragon, he will be locked in a cage where it is dark and it is cold and it is still. He will be shackled and hidden away and he will never again see the sun or the moon or the stars. He will never feel a breath of wind across his skin.

Cassandra stares at this boy who lives with the soul of the wind and uses her own free will for the first time.

* * *

(His eyes are full of fear as she approaches and he struggles as she once again presses the cloth to his mouth, but then he goes limp and Cassandra unties him and heads back in the direction they came from, intent on delivering him to his...his…[friends.])

* * *

("Aang!" says Katara when they find him, lying peacefully on a bed in one of the abandoned rooms of the temple. He opens his eyes blearily and looks at her as pounding footsteps indicate the approach of the others.

"Aang, what happened?! Where were you?"

"I...I think I was...kidnapped?")

* * *

It is night when she realizes.

In one moment she is sleeping; in the next she is not. Her eyes open and she stares into the darkness of the night.

She is frozen with uncertainty. She is paralyzed by doubt.

Cassandra does not like to be immobilized by anything.

She has made her decision, and she is going to stand by it. No one deserves to be locked away in the dark. No one deserves to be anything less than free. But if she goes back, her father will know.

David Cain does not readily accept failure, but he does not expect her to fail. No, it's more than that; he knows she will not. She cannot. She is a weapon that has been hewn and sharpened and poisoned. She is the best fighter in the world, even without the breath of an element inside her breast.

When Cassandra comes back without the Avatar, her father will know she has not failed.

David Cain does not readily accept failure, but even more so he does not tolerate disobedience.

And Cassandra has been very disobedient.

He won't hurt her, at least not physically. Her pain threshold is remarkably high and anything he could do to cross it would risk chipping his precious weapon. But there are other things he can do, other things he can make her do.

Cassandra thinks of a dark, tight room with no light and stale air. She thinks of being trapped, unable to move, unable to see, unable to breath. She thinks of an old woman's frightened eyes, a little boy's scream, a young man's blood on her hands glowing crimson in the firelight.

She thinks of these things and she realizes.

She can't go back.

Cassandra opens up from where she has curled into a ball and rolls onto her back. Her dark eyes gaze up at the twinkling stars and she breathes in the scent of grass and dirt and the chirping of night-insects all around her in the wilderness.

She breathes in the scent of freedom.

Cassandra thinks of the boy who's freedom she has granted. She thinks of the wind in his eyes, in his stride, in his heart. She thinks of his [friends] and their laughing and their fighting and their fierce, fierce loyalty. She thinks of them riding atop their great beast, air streaming about them, thinks about them going wherever they please with nothing to stop them and only each other to protect themselves. Cassandra imagines herself flying with them.

She thinks of freedom.

And Cassandra decides again.

She wants to be free.

* * *

Cassandra spends a full day deliberating.

She goes back to the temple almost immediately, nestles herself among the ruins and watches, but she can't make herself go near them.

The Avatar will surely recognize her, and she knows what she looks like. Even ignoring the fact that she is dressed in the dark, gold-edged garments of a fire-soldier, her every movement reads danger. She had kidnapped their Avatar, tied him up, knocked him out. She is a threat.

What if they reject her? What will she do then? Where will she go?

Cassandra breathes deeply and drops to the ground. She begins to move, placing her steps with deliberate weight so that they make an impression heavy enough to be noticeable by those who are listening, and by those who can feel the earth like an extension of themselves.

She can hear a cry from the campground, the voice of the blind girl alerting her [friends] to Cassandra's presence, and then there is a rush a movement as her not-prey grabs for weapons and hurries to confront her.

Cassandra stops and she waits for them to come to her.

Soon enough they appear, running towards her and then skidding to a stop, weapons drawn and elements engaged. She can see that they are having trouble spotting her, so she shifts into the light. They lower their stances at the movement, but then the Avatar registers who she is and let's out a cry, bringing his staff up and around, beginning the movement that will send the air rushing in her direction—

Cassandra holds out a hand and he stops.

"You!" says the Avatar belatedly. His friends eye him curiously.

"Do you know this girl?" asks the water-girl, her body saying how what confused?

Danger danger capture she danger she she kidnap me capture run fight? fight fight fight— "That's the girl who kidnapped me! See, I told you it wasn't a dream!"

"Back to finish the job?" jeers the blind girl, moving forward dangerously and shaking the ground as she goes, but Cassandra stays put, not letting herself be intimidated, and it pays off because the blind girl stops where she is and stares. "Maybe you should just get out of here before we kick your butt!"

aggression protect **fight me** protect the avatar protect them all fight fight **fight me** tough tough **tough**

Cassandra blinks.

"Well? Say something!" snarles the Dragon's son, flames flaring in his eyes. "Who are you working for? Did my father send you?"

Cassandra sighs. She reaches into her belt and pulls out the piece of paper her own father had given to her, the one with the meaningless scribbles and the drawing of the Avatar. She offers it to them and the water-girl takes it suspiciously, then retreats back to the group and unfurls it.

They all gasp at the same time. It's almost funny.

"A wanted poster?"

"You're hunting us?"

"So the Fire Lord did send you!"

They eye her with increasing hostility, and Cassandra shies inwards, curling her hands into fists at her sides and feeling her heart rate accelerate. If it comes into a fight she could beat them, even all at once, but she doesn't want to. She wants them to understand.

Cassandra opens up her body and projects understand understand **understand understand understand** as hard as she possibly can but of course they don't. No one does, except for her father, and even he doesn't get it as easily as she does.

There is a brief, flickering moment where her heart twinges and hate fills her and she thinks of her father and just... just hates him and then she remembers that hate is not productive and breathes deeply, in through her nose and out through her mouth until she is calm again.

"Why isn't she saying anything?" asks the Avatar tentatively.

"Maybe it's cuz she's just another one of the Fire Lord's stupid pawns— "

Cassandra's not sure what the water-boy said but she can read it in his body and she does not like it.

"N-nn…" begins Cassandra, startled at the sound of her one voice. "No!"

She's never spoken before. It surprises her just as much as it surprises them. She raises a shaking hand to touch her lips.

"What's that face she's making?"

"'No' what ?"

Water-girl's brow furrows and she steps forward. "Have you never spoken before?"

There is a pause, then her friends round on her. "What?" asks the Dragon's son.

"I...I think she's not saying anything because she doesn't know how."

"You mean she speaks a different language?" asks the Avatar curiously.

"No, I think she—"

"She doesn't speak any language, does she?" interjects the earth-girl, and from the way she's looking at Cassandra, she can feel her heartbeat through the earth.

Cassandra feels hope. The whole group radiates with the beginning of an understanding.

"Who are you?" asks the Avatar shyly, curiously. "And... what are you?"

what happened to you? what made you this way?

Cassandra moves forward towards the Avatar and he jumps away, his friends surging to stop her, but she is faster than all of them and within a moment she is standing before him with her hands cupped on his chest. He stares at her, and then holds up a hand to his friends, his posture reading curious curious and also trust? . "Hang on, I think she's trying to tell us something."

Cassandra presses down on his chest, where his heart is, and blows gently into face, her low-cut bangs fluttering. She presses harder and then moves toward water-girl, who startles but let her place her hands on the blue cloth of her tunic, over her heart, just like she'd done with the Avatar.

She presses into water-girl's chest, feels the fluttering of her heart like a caged bird, and points to the container of water that the girl wears on her hip.

Then she moves again, this time to earth-girl. The younger girl's stance reads wary wary wary danger? but Cassandra touches her anyway, lightly this time, and then harder as she plants her feet in the ground and feels the shift of dirt beneath the soles of her shoes.

Beat ba-bump goes earth-girl's heart, and Cassandra points towards the earth.

They're all watching her intently now, not one of them saying a word, no one stopping her as she heads towards the Dragon's son. He backs up quickly, the embers in his eyes sparking warily as he tries to step away from her.

She won't allow that. She grabs his arm and hold him gently but firmly, then takes her other hand and cups it over his heart.

She points to the fire in the center of camp, then points back to him and presses into his chest.

Water-boy tenses as she moves away from the Dragon's son, but she does not move towards him. He does not illustrate the point she is trying to make. Instead, she steps away from them all and slowly, laboriously forces her unused vocal chords into operation once again.

"Y-" she begins, then stops and clears the scratchiness from her throat. "Yoo—you."

They stare at her. She takes a deep breath and pulls her knife from its sheath, tucked as it is into the folds of her pants fabric. There's a shift when she does that, as if they expect her to attack, but of course she doesn't. She just walks toward the Avatar and offers him the knife, hilt facing towards him and blade deliberately aimed at herself. Once he takes it, she steps back and cups both hands over her own heart this time.

"Me," she says softly.

There is silence; the gentle breath of a breeze stirs her hair, an ant crawls across her shoe. She does not move.

"What?" asks water-boy, and Cassandra sags. They don't understand, and she doesn't know how to make them understand. If they can't understand her, they won't want her near them, and she'll be alone until one day, inevitably, her father will find her and he will do terrible things to her and make her do terrible things in return and she doesn't want that —

"Wait, I think I get it," says the Avatar, and she glances at him in hope. His shoulders read a tentative sort of understanding, his expression speaks of sadness and terrible fear that he is correct. It's a good fear, though, thinks Cassandra. This is not the fear of her; it is the fear for her sake.

"What, Aang? What's she saying?" water-girl prods, not moving her eyes from the shadow of a girl before them.

"If I'm air, and you're water, and Toph is earth and Zuko is fire, then she's the knife."

Water-boy blinks. "I still don't get it."

"How do you not get it?" growls Zuko in a low, horrified tone that causes Cassandra to shrink inwards. "She's telling us that she's a weapon."

Cassandra doesn't understand all the words, but she reads the dawning horror and sudden realization in all of their bodies, and a giddy feeling fills her at having her meaning understood. If they understand, maybe she can stay.

They all turn to face her. "You're a weapon?" asks water-girl, sounding sad. "Is that what you're saying?"

Cassandra smiles a small, small smile, and nods.

"So what do you want?" presses the Avatar. "Why are you here?"

Cassandra inhales slowly and steels herself, reading the same question on all of their faces.

"Stay?"

* * *

This story is probably going to have at least one more chapter, and that chapter will be composed of tidbits and pieces of Cassandra's life with Team Avatar. If you have anything you want to see, suggest it in a comment.


End file.
